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American Airlines is requesting a Texas state court to allow a three-month extension for all deadlines in the lawsuit it filed against Sabre, to delay the expiration of its full-content deal with Sabre and give the GDS firm's subscribers access for a longer period to the carrier's content. "Because this case is so important, American is not seeking to stay this case or put off the deadlines by any significant amount of time. It simply seeks a little breathing room in the middle of a monumental event for the company," American said in its filing.

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Airlines appear to be reversing their stance toward allowing GDSs to distribute their ancillary products. Air France-KLM's deal with Travelport allowing agent subscribers to access the airline's seating products is the latest in a string of full-content deals between carriers and GDS firms.

U.S. District Judge Terry Means has denied a request by travel companies to dismiss an antitrust lawsuit filed by American Airlines. American Airlines claims that companies such as Orbitz Worldwide, Sabre Holdings and Travelport monopolize flight information and airfares available to travel agents.

Airlines are working productively with global distribution systems in efforts to distribute their ancillary products to travel agents via GDS, said executives at Sabre Travel Network. Shelly Terry, a senior director at Sabre, said the company's dispute with American Airlines was pushing attention away from these collaborative efforts. "Most [airlines] are by and large very excited to embrace these capabilities. They want to get their product into as many channels as possible and on as many shelves as possible," Terry said.

Chris Kroeger, senior vice president of marketing at Sabre, said the global distribution system doesn't intend to start biasing American Airlines flights despite today's deadline, in which the legal proceedings between the two companies can resume. Kroeger said a temporary restraining order will still keep Sabre from biasing the flights, which generally makes them difficult for travel agents and other GDS users to find and use.

Sabre, in response to a direct-connect deal struck between American Airlines and Expedia, is telling its customers it already has "direct connections" with the carrier. Sabre is opposed to a move by AA to change XML direct-connects. Expedia already gets gets GDS services in the U.S. from Sabre.